Spondylolisthesis - I have Spondylosis, which I have a pinched nerve in my neck that have causes?

... pain and numbness down my left arm. It is now starting to affect right arm as well. I'm scheduled to see a specialist in December but anyways was wondering what drugs are usually prescribed to Spondylosis patients with the condition in the upper vertebrae of the spine.

I enjoy your literature! I am just trying to understand acute pain?? Is that pain that is temp. and that can be cured... My pain cannot be cured so is that why I get fentanyl? I am just learning about these kind of things. Ive been in this situation for 25 yrs and I am getting older so they are finally realizing that its time to help her.! I fell apart about 5 yrs ago. Getting older does it!

I have the same problem in my neck ! I had neck surgery in april of 08(actually the 1st). I wish that I would have never had surgery. Both of my arms fall asleep during the night. I wake up and shake my arms to awake them. This is every night and in any position. I cannot sleep on my neck or head. It is so painful;so I pretty much suffer. I have gone through pillow after pillow(because I cannot find one that is comfortable) I still havent found a pillow that works. I have bags full of pillows! I have several pinched nerves. The nerves affect my breasts, underneath my arms and in my upper back.and of course my arms ect. Its a different kind of pain. The pain is unbelieveable.Sitting on the computer is so hard. My shoulders were fine until I had surgery. I cant lift my arms up or use my shoulders and the dr told me to excercise. Yeah right! My shoulders are so stiff and full of pain. I cannot have my neck or shoulders rubbed because it hurts immensely.

Be careful deciding what should be done. Nothing can take away your pinched nerve. Most of the time at night I cant even lift my arms. I know other people that had neck surgery and it worked. But U have to put in to consideration that they most likely didnt have the nerve problem. I will live the rest of my life like this and I have been having a hard time excepting that. That is one reason why I am here blogging U today. Support and understanding. My dr has me on the fentanyl patch. I have been on so many different things;but this has worked wonders. If your dr can cure your problem by surgery that would be great,but I wouldnt expect that too highly. I asked my total spine dr to burn my nerves because I cant tolerate the shots and pain anymore. He told me they could but they have to figure out what nerves they are and it could also create more problems. I am lost myself. Be careful. drs are all different. I definately needed surgery on my neck. I would probably be worse in other ways. if I didnt have it.They may be able to help U; but also U could get worse. They cannot cure nerve problems. I truly myself believe that. I am so use to my arms sleeping at night and also my legs because I have the same problem in my low back. U will eventually adapt to it. U may be lucky so I do not mean to scare U. I pray for U, that it all works out. Write if U have anymore questions. How long has this been going on?? Othopedic drs will not normally prescibe U drugs. U most likely will have to go to your regular physician. He may not give U a pain killer either. Are U in harsh pain?? They do not have anything for sleeping limbs. They will most likely send U to a pain clinic. I, myself do not like pain clinics. Eventually I will have to go to one, because my dr is retiring. U may get lucky and your ortho dr will give U something until U go to a pain clinic or your reular dr. I just got on fentanyl last week. I am still in denial over all of this. I was on vicodin to start with, percocet, tramadol, and am still on oxycodone and fentanyl patch. I have been going through this for at least 9 yrs with the neck and 25 yrs with the back. It all got worse with age. I am 45. The fentanly works great but it will take yrs before they do that. My problem is also disks and vertabraes. I am not so sure about vertabraes. Your chances are better than mine and hopefully U dont have a disk problem. I didnt mean to write so much. Do U have a problem sleeping on your neck? I wear a neck brace most of the time; which isnt good because you can lose muscle. I cant tell U what they will give U ; it all depends on who your dr is. vertabrae and disks are different. I had both . I am just curious about your pain.

Hi Loopi1anker2q.com. Thank you so much for replying to my question and I am very touched for taking the time for you to write in so much detail to help and what you've experienced. All your advice and info. is great and very helpful! Not sure where to start so I'll start by answering some of your questions for me. I was diagnosed with Spondylosis around March of this year. I woke one morning and had sharp pain and numbness from my neck across my left shoulder blade area of my back down my bicep to the forearm and to my thumb. I'm only 29 and not really overweight so I thought surely it can be a heart problem like a stroke or heart attack type symptoms. I've had plenty of aches and pains in my neck and back in many previous months prior but nothing that felt liked pinched nerve and circulation along with lose of strength and grip in my left arm.

So I went to a urgent care hospital and they weren't sure exactly so they had me come back in a week and told me that's what I had. I never heard of Spondylosis before so I did my homework on the internet and sure enough all my symptoms hit right on target. I guess to back up leading to this also. I was working in somewhat heavy labor type job for 6 years with this company and I strained some muscles and vertebrae in my middle back so I went to chiropractor for treatment which also brings up the coincidence in your experience with sleeping pillows. I had to purchase a special pillow from the chiropractor to keep my neck aligned while sleeping because my conclusion from the strenious muscle lifting at work I was doing at the time my back and neck muscles were extremely tense and had to see deep tissue massage therapist that helped quite a bit but once a week wasn't enough and couldn't afford anymore visits than that. Sorry to ramble on so anyways which leads me to because of muscle tightness of tired muscles,etc. I kept on waking up with extremely bad neck strains where i couldn't hardly turn my neck and was very painful so I got this pillow which is designed specifically for three positions-laying on back, laying on left side and right side. It worked wonders and don't wake up anymore with neck problems like that anyways. But ya I've tried quite a few pillows myself and even some of the memory type pillows. They all failed. Had to have the strict alignment of the chiropractic pillow. As far as harsh pain, at times I do but I'm sure as you know some days better than others for some reason. Mostly mine occurs if I sit at the computer a long time or stand or walk a lot,etc. Muscle relaxers help quite a bit. I take cyclobenzaprine-muscle relaxer and Meloxicam (nsaid) for the actual spondylosis to help with the inflamed joints,etc. I was taking hydrocodone 7.5's and 10's because I also have pain in my knees but my physcian rather me stick with an inflamatory plus being a narcotic they really don't like prescribing. Come to find out though after from detoxing from hydro. I really think you have to watch those narcotic drugs though like hydrocodone(vicadin), oxy, etc. because it started giving me false pain in another words kind of like it made you more aware and sensitive to pain. I also read some articles about that too. But right now I just take Meloxicam and cyclobenzaprine. I try my best to limit myself from them as much as possible because of my stomach. I have acid reflux and a sensitive stomach and take two nexium's a day plus another one i think sulfratrate plus whatever antacids. I'm finally supposed to see a Orthopedic dr. Dec. 3. I am really sorry to hear about all the pain you've been through and will try to give you advice I can. I have a neighbor across the street that is really helpful. He's 60 yrs. old and has bone degeneration disease also, had both hips replaced, recently had a shoulder replaced, gone through cancer, and would have to have refresh my memory on all the other stuff. He's on 60 mg. morphine three times a day right now and all other kinds of meds., has experience been on all the narc. like oxycontin, hydrocodone,etc. Anyways a really great friend of mine and I should really get him on drugs.com to help people also. I know you mentioned exercise not being an option for you and totally understand because that's like my neighbor also. I've started exercising again because I gained too much weight and was very surprised that it helped with the numbness in my arms, neck, and back but I have to watch not to do much in my back exercises though. It's helped me limit the meds. a little bit. Oh ya, back to my neighbor again after reading over message again. The dr.'s also wanted to do that procedure also with burning the nerves that cause the pain. After praying and thinking about it he decided not to go through with it either. He was also to freaked out about them taking the top of his skull off and waking him for them to ask him questions while their trying to seer off the pain nerves with no garantee of positive results and could make him even worse than he already is. We were talking about that a few weeks ago and my opinion on it even though I can't even really relate to the pain he's in and thought it was too risky. Well i hope i answered some of your questions for now and hope to be any help to you. Thank you for your prayers and will praying for you too.

Hi Loop, I wanted to let u know I really appreciate your help and was very touched by thoughtfulness in taking the time to type up so much helpful info. I replied to your message above two days ago and submitted it. Then they told me they would have to review my comment, crazy. My message was extremely long and detailed. I should have saved it but I expected the website to post it by now and don't know why they have to review it, it's not like there was anything bad in it. Maybe cause it was so long but anyways didn't want you to thing I ignored you. If it doesn't post here soon, I'll get my thoughts together and submit another one. One thing I put in the message was I have gone through a lot of pillows too to help sleep and maybe part of the cause with the pinched nerve in my neck but something to think about and maybe you've tried the pillow already. I don't know the brand or name of it but I can find out for you.

I got it from a chiropractor I was going to. It has in the middle of the pillow, it has a lower part for resting your neck while sleeping on your back and the left and right side of that it raises back up to keep your neck aligned while sleeping on your sides. It's made out of sort of like memory foam type material but I think it's a little bit stronger and more supportive. But anyways it has worked wonders and has been the only thing that has kept me from hurting my neck while sleeping. I've tried many types of pillows including memory foam pillows but this has been the only thing that works for me at least. I paid about 70 or 80 dollars for it but it was a small price for the results. You get someone to measure your shoulder width and other dimensions because they have small up to x-large i think. Hopefully this web site will get my original detailed message posted up here soon but if not i will type one up again here soon. Take care.

My daughter recently had the same type problem. For 1 yr. she was treated for tendonitis in her arm. Finally the doctor ordered an MRI on her neck. This revealed herniated discs in her neck. She had not had a significant injury, and the doctors did not believe this until they looked at the MRI. The first thing they would say was, "she's fifteen, this doesn't usually happen to people her age. But I can tell you, it does. She went to physical therapy for 8 wks. They only did traction on her neck. It helped immeadiately! If you haven't had an MRI, please insist on it. Traction will help the disc go back in place, and help the nerve it is pressing on. (If that is the problem).

Thank you, kshrader. I will definitely look into the MRI and the traction. I haven't had either of them done yet. I've had just an x-ray done from my neck down to the middle of my back at the chiropractor when I had a mid back strain but that was before the Spondylosis. The x-ray did detect though a slight mis-alignment in my neck but at that time the chiropractor I guess wasn't to concerned about it. Coincidentally enough though just this past week or so my mid-back started hurting again after a year and a half back pain free. Although I don't really think my back pain and my neck issues are necessarily related but I could be wrong of course. I have started working out at the gym again and I thought it was helping my numbness and shocks in my arms and neck. Because one of the main things I don't like is muscle weakness such as in grip so every once in a while it's hard to hold onto things, or my cordination is off and drop things.

Which I'm puzzled about why a pinched nerve causes muscle weakness but I guess that's a question I need to ask. While making sure I stay away from overworking my back muscles but I'm not too sure anymore. Seems like no matter what I do my neck and back muscles tense up and have to stay more on top of taking muscle relaxer and anti-inflamatory meds. I see my primary physician on Nov. 30th and the Ortho doctor Dec. 3rd. so I'll definitely have my notes ready for them. Sorry, once again I catch myself rambling on again. Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.